Chapter 5-6 questions

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McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Performance Assessment

The Focus of Performance Assessments

Chapter 6:

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Performance Assessments

The importance and utility of these assessments have grown due to in large part to teachers’ desire to obtain from students accurate learning evidence based on authentic and meaningful “real world” demonstrations and performances.
These kinds of learning verifications meet the accountability mandate of “show me,” and for that reason are viewed as highly desirable by all those connected to the learning process: teachers, students, parents, and other community members.

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What is a Performance Assessment?

A performance event involves the presentation of some specific individual and/or group-based performance that typically involves an external reviewer, usually the teacher or some other appointed official, who observes and critically evaluates the performance based on a pre-set list of criteria.
In addition to the actual performance, the skills or competencies required to generate the specific work product (e.g., the creation of an interactive website, defending a position during a debate, etc.) are often reviewed and evaluated as part of the process.

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High-Level Performances

Most work that is generated in the classroom involves a production or performance of some kind (e.g., generating an answer to a question usually requires a writing performance).
However, performance events and assessments are by design focused on substantial and more involved and refined responses from students.
There are several critical learning characteristics or qualities typically associated with performance assessments. For example, performance assessments require a student to perform, sometimes in front of others, and participate in an identified activity or task (e.g., recital) or create some required product (e.g., a pen-and-ink portrait).

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Expected Learning Characteristics of Performance Events

High-level skills evidenced in the performance or demonstration
Extensive and higher level cognitive processing expected
Competency often set or expected at the independent functional level
Multiple skill integration evidenced within the performance event
Performance events reflect real-world skills, experiences, and/or needs

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Focus of Performance Assessments

Performance assessments, like other classroom assessments, are constructed to accurately measure student learning and progress in accordance with the identified standards and learning objectives of a lesson(s).
Some assessments by their design can be more efficient in measuring certain kinds or levels of knowledge and/or skills. For example, paper-and-pencil tests are quite effective in measuring and documenting student learning involving basic knowledge, foundation skill sets, as well as general application of that knowledge and/or skill sets.

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Focus of Performance Assessments

Performance assessments by their construction can often examine higher, more integrated skill sets. This is particularly helpful and essential as the teacher moves students beyond the foundation levels of cognitive processing (e.g. understanding, comprehension) to higher processing skills. This provides an opportunity of going beyond merely writing about a subject or topic and actually doing it.
For example, performing experiments during a science lab reflects that “active doing” process where students are required to merge information and skills together in order to understand a chemical process, identify an unknown compound, or perhaps identify a new pollutant that has entered a ground water system.

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Different Needs, Different Measures

Different types of student work or demonstrations can be used within performance assessments. One of the more recognized products that are generated within performance assessments is the portfolio.
It can be specific to a content area (e.g., writing), a certain technique/medium (e.g., watercolor, pen-and-ink, etc.) or it can reflect an integration and development of skills and/or experiences over an extended period of time (e.g. teaching or professional portfolio). The list of possible performance events is limited only by the imagination and determination of the teacher in identifying those learning events.

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Evaluating Student Performance Events

With the creation of performance events comes the requirement of determining the means by which they will be reviewed and evaluated.
A student’s performance is usually examined relative to a standardized set of required steps, completed actions, or pre-set criteria that are used in the review of the performance or product.

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Evaluating Student Performance Events

However, generating a clear assessment and review of the performance event is just as important and needed if accurate information on student learning/progress is to be obtained.
One of the most prevalent and popular measurement techniques for performance events used in today’s classroom involves the use of rubrics.

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Rubrics

Rubrics as defined by Arter & McTighe (2001) are “scoring tools containing criteria and a performance scale that allows us to define and describe the most important components that comprise complex performances and products” (p. 8).
The selected criteria clarify the qualities that the work must possess in order to receive a certain score or rating.
If shared before and/or during the construction of a project, rubrics provide each student with a clear and unmistakable image of the quality of the work that is required.

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Rubrics

Rubrics are particularly useful and desirable in reviewing student work and products within the classroom setting.
With stated ratings, criteria, and work expectations, a rubric provides every learner with a clear performance standard prior to the completion of a project. Once the work is started it can provide useful feedback/review to a student throughout the completion of the project.

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What Are Rubrics?

Essentially rubrics are scoring guidelines that allow teachers to assess and evaluate the quality of student work or responses.
Rubrics need to describe levels of performance.
Rubrics needs to describe what is to be learned.
Rubrics allow for two basic methods of scoring: holistic (one score) and analytic (two or more subscores)

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Basic Features

Rubrics are designed to help measure a stated objective (usually a performance or behavior) and/or standard.
They provide a range in rating/judging a certain performance.

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Basic Features

Rubrics typically contain specific performance criteria, typically arranged in levels, that indicate the degree to which the objective or standard has been met.
They help provide valuable feedback to students, instructors, and/or departments (can be summative or formative by design).

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General and Selective Use

Rubrics can be designed and constructed to serve as a general review for several work products or activities.
Conversely, they also can be created so that they are very selective and narrow and used for only one particular activity or project. A teacher is likely to need both kinds of rubrics.

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General and Selective Use

The advantage with general rubrics is that they can be used with different activities and across a variety of settings and events. A specific rubric doesn’t have to be created and developed for each separate activity.
For example, if the science teachers at your school had decided that the use and implementation of the scientific method throughout the school year is a priority, then the use of a general rubric could be used to evaluate students’ progress in following the scientific method across a number of different science activities and projects.

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General and Selective Use

General rubrics are particularly economical in regard to development and construction time and work.
However, there are instances when only a specific and focused rubric will work given the instructional need. When that is the case, a rubric needs to be designed to meet that assessment need with little, if any, scoring generalizability to any other classroom activities.

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Holistic Rubric

Rubrics are also designed to be either holistic or analytical in their function.
A holistic rubric involves a scoring mechanism where a single score or rating is used to represent a student’s entire work. The teacher or rater examines the entire process or product, including all elements of that work, and then selects a single score or rating that best represents the entire project (Nitko 2001).

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Analytical Rubric

An analytical rubric is designed to rate or score each identified criterion of the required project. These individual scores are then combined to generate a total score (Nitko 2001).
For instance, if there are four specific criterions associated with an assignment, then four scores or ratings would be generated with each one rated based on their respective criteria set, as well as a total composite score.
The analytical approach can provide more detailed information and feedback to students, as opposed to the holistic approach, regarding their performance and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their work.

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Building an Effective Rubric

Assuming a rubric fits your assessment needs, it then needs to possess certain qualities, such as:

Instruction-assessment alignment
Clear representation of criterions and performance levels across those criterions
Distinct point values associated with each skill/performance level
Meaningful performance descriptors

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Effective Rubric

For instruction-learning-assessment alignment, the skill criterions listed in the rubric that serve as student performance measures should reflect and connect with the intended goals and outcomes of the provided lesson(s).
This basic alignment requirement exists for all assessment measures and that includes any rubric that is developed and used to review student work.
The skill criterions should match up with what has been taught and emphasized in the classroom as well as be appropriate and consistent with the requirements of the construction of the student project that is being reviewed.

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Baking Rubric

Class activity with the “cooking” rubric

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Aspects of Rubric Development: Revision

Reevaluate the rubric and its effectiveness on a regular basis.
Does it provide you with the kind of information you are seeking?
Is the rating system providing consistent scorings across reviewers?
Are random rating/calibration checks being completed?

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Questions To Ask When Developing Rubrics

1. Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) and/or standard(s) being measured?
2. Does it cover important and essential dimensions of student performance?
3. Do the criteria reflect current conceptions of excellence in the field?
4. Are the dimensions or scales well-defined?
5. Is there a clear basis for assigning scores at each scale point?

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Questions To Ask When Developing Rubrics

6. Can the rubric be applied consistently by different scores?
7. Can the rubric be understood by students?
8. Does the rubric provide useful information and feedback to the students?
9. Is the rubric fair and free from bias?
10. Is the rubric useful, manageable, and practical?
11. Other questions?

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Checklists

As useful and popular as rubrics have become, it’s important to understand that a rubric is not always required or necessary with every classroom performance activity or project. Sometimes other measures, such as a checklist, can better serve your assessment needs.
Checklists involve the listing of essential components or elements of a behavior or procedure and are not as “robust” in regards to the collection of assessment data as the rubric.

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Checklists

Checklists are typically used when a teacher needs to review or monitor student work or progress or when learning needs to be confirmed. They serve an important but basic function of marking and recording whether certain behaviors are exhibited or not.
If during the instructional process you need to check whether a certain behavior or condition is present or a skill has been demonstrated or not, then a checklist is well-suited for that assessment purpose.

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Checklist Format

When completing a checklist, the teacher provides a mark or check from a list of items and indicates whether a certain behavior is demonstrated as part of the performance.
A simple recording process is typically followed and no qualitative variations are noted unless the checklist is designed to identify the quality of a performance (e.g., accurate completion, correct spelling, etc.).

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Checklist Results

A common approach in generating a score from a checklist, if it is needed, is to add up the number (or percentage) of items. However, before that is done, it is important to make sure all the desired and necessary behaviors or items are on the checklist.
In addition, some relative meaning must be attached to the scores and a determination of what level must be acquired in order to receive a passing grade.

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Checklist Results

Checklists can also be connected to specific observations or be used to check whether specific steps have been followed during a specific activity (e.g., math equation or a science experiment).
In general, checklists provide a focused structure on the information or content that needs to be reviewed and examined within an activity.

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Make Sure Your Students Know the Performance Event Well

Whatever activity is chosen as the performance event, how it is presented to the learner(s) and evaluated is critical.
Sometimes well-intended educators get all wrapped up into doing a performance assessment without really deciding why it’s being done and what knowledge and skill sets are being tapped in the process.

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Performance Assessment Review

When considering performance assessments, make sure the following questions are addressed:
1. What skills are being examined and evaluated as part of this project?
2. Are there only academic targets or are there other skill targets (e.g., time management, organization, and communication) connected with the performance event?

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Performance Assessment Review

3. Are measures being used that accurately review and evaluate the quality and extent of the work provided as part of the performance event?
4. Have the evaluation criteria of the performance assessment(s) been shared with students prior to the start of the performance assessment?

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Fully Inform Your Students

As indicated in the last performance review question, an essential issue surrounding performance assessments is the need to share with the students all essential information about the performance assessment itself.
That should include how the demonstration (e.g., speech, class presentation, recital, etc.) or product (e.g., poster, project, portfolio, etc.) will be evaluated (e.g., rubrics, checklists, etc.) along with sample products that the students can examine and review.

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Fully Inform Your Students

There should be no surprises when it comes to knowing what the students need to be able to do and how their work will be judged. Formative reviews can also be built into the process where constructive feedback is provided and hopefully incorporated into the work before it is officially evaluated and formally scored.